What it Takes
by BuildYourFences
Summary: What it takes to be strong, to Johanna Mason, who is more intelligent, and more perceptive than most people think. "And they all want to call you strong, for your triumph, and your ability to keep on going. You know it's all a lie."   Rating for Language
1. Chapter 1

AN: So this is inside the mind of Johanna Mason. There's a little bit of background that I completely made up myself, so don't get mad or anything. I put her age as around 20, because the books never actually say. Other than that, I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Duh

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You know no one likes you. Prickly, they call you. And that's only when they're being nice. You've heard them talking about you, and sometimes you show them just how _prickly _you can be, but most of the time, you just don't bother. These privileged people, these underground rebels, they don't know shit about suffering, about tragedy. They're beneath your notice, just like all the empty-headed Capitol fools. District 13.

How you _hate _them. They who have been living in comfort for the past decades, while their brothers and sister starved and fought for the right to survive. Who had to stand by and watch their _children_ suffer, wild-eyed and hysterical, but unable to save anyone. Who had grown to believe that kindness meant killing a man so he wouldn't have to die of starvation. You know that if you didn't need Thirteen and their stupid nukes so badly, you wouldn't hesitate to kill them all.

They think they're so _powerful _and so _prepared _for this war. You know better. You've always been older than you are, ancient and bitter enough at 20 to be 85, and you can see them for what they are. Children. Naïve. Innocent, like you were at fourteen when you were thrust into the arena and told to survive. You'd spent years watching, observing, forming plans. You knew exactly what you would do if you were chosen.

(You didn't want to be. You definitely didn't want to be. But by twelve you were already signing up for enough tessarae to support three, so you knew it was a possibility).

You thought you were prepared.

Then the canon sounded and the games began and you knew you weren't prepared for _shit._ You ran from the Cornucopia, because you weren't stupid and you knew what happened to scrawny fourteen years old girls who froze up in the middle of a bloodbath. But no matter how fast you flew, you couldn't _not see _the ax embed itself in a District 4's skull just inches in front of you.

So you sat in a tree and you wept, and you were just glad it helped you play your part, because you knew you wouldn't have been able to stop, even if it got you killed.

So that's how you know that these District 13 people? They're in for a rude awakening. They think they have strength, strength of mind, of body, and of character. None of them are strong. Not Coin, the leader, not Plutarch, who gave up a charmed life in the Capitol, not any of their goddamned soldiers.

And they all want to call you strong, for your triumph, and your ability to _keep on going. _They think they have that _right_, because you're all together, fighting for the same side now. You're used to it. Over the years, you've listened to a lot of people who really know nothing at all try to tell you who you are.

Johanna Mason, victor.

Johanna Mason, underdog.

Johanna Mason, 'the strongest person to play the games.'

You know it's all a lie. You've seen true strength in your lifetime, once or twice, and you know this isn't it.

True strength is not the thin barrier you put around your heart when you decided to win the Hunger Games, because Luka, your little brother, was slow and Jarenth, you mother, was fragile. No, that was survival, and maybe a little love, because you knew if you won you could take care of them and if you didn't, they'd be better off because your village would pity them.

And when you came home, triumphant, and found that Luka had drowned one day when your mother wasn't watching, and then your mother, your stupid, delicate, _perfect_ mother had killed herself out of grief?

Your heart was crushed. It was pulverized, smashed, beaten, and maimed. Ground into a thin powder that you couldn't care enough to pick up and mend. But if you were _strong _, you would have stood up, shook yourself off, and done it anyway. Instead, you swept what used to be your heart into a pile and built an iron wall around it. Sturdy, yes, but no impenetrable. Iron rusts and erodes, and, with enough heat, snaps. Inside is a girl so mutilated a strong wind could knock her down.

You _know_ that and so you vowed never to care again. It wasn't hard—your father never loved you and you never loved him and that was that; the village was terrified of you, wouldn't even come near you, even though you were a victor, alone with your spoils.

So you didn't even have to pretend for a few years, until you went back to the Capitol for mentoring, and met Haymitch and Finnick and Mags. They wanted you, they truly did, because they were victors too, and they understood, more than anyone ever had. They were so damaged, like you, but they were also desperate to latch on to anyone they wouldn't have to watch die. Surrounded by so much murder, sending children off to be slaughtered, you either befriend your fellow mentors or went insane. You were a constant for them, because you were guaranteed to survive the games, and they needed you as much as you needed them. So you, accepted, because you were hard, but not hard enough to say no.

You let them burrow through your wall, let them have a glimpse of your mangled heart, but you never let them touch it. You always kept them at arms' length, because the smallest misstep would kill you. It's not fair and you know it. They let you in, fully and unreserved. You tried. You tried so hard to puncture that last filmy of protection. You told yourself that they were all too far gone and too desperate to ever decide you weren't enough. You told yourself _you _were too desperate to decide _they _weren't enough. But, in the end, you couldn't do it, so all you've got left is:

-The ghost of a little autistic boy who liked to chase butterflies and ask questions and thought you were just the best person on earth, but who ran a little too close to heaven one day and couldn't get back,

(You tried to protect him, but it wasn't enough).

-The memory of a mother who loved you, but not enough to live for you. Who you would like to hate for leaving you alone, but can't because you remember her too well, and she was one of those people who was too good to be hated,

(You tried to be perfect for her; in the end you were just Johanna, but that was good enough for her, so you decided it was good enough for anybody.)

-A lot of hollow, empty space.

And you will never be strong.

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Sorry if this goes against things suggested about Johanna's past in any of the books, but I felt that since there was so little information given, it was ok to take some liberties

Anyway, if anyone actually likes this, I do have some other chapters I could throw on, with more made up background, where Johanna talks about her friends and strength (Haymitch, Finnick, etc). Tell me what you think!

P.S. I can't figure out how to indent on this website! Can someone help me out?


	2. Finnick

A/N: Ok, so I wrote part of this ages ago and part of it today so I've no idea how it turned out. I don't know what's going on. I don't know anything. The timeline might be a little condensed or stretched but hopefully it still makes sense. Tell me what you think. I've got Haymitch and Katniss sort of on the table.

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Disclaimer: Like you need me to say it

FInnick Odair.

The first thing you thought when you saw him was _he's a fluke._ A mistake. Because when you first saw him, mentoring for your first time, you were mean and cruel and you liked it that way, because it kept everyone out. Still, he sat right down next to you, gorgeous and blond and so cool, and told you when he was little, he wanted to be an astronaut.

You were confused. You were sixteen and you thought everyone should hate this world like you did. Finnick sat beside you, peeled back your layer of disdain, when he told you what an astronaut was, peeled back your layer of scorn when he told you it was something from the old world, the one you barely believed in, and peeled back your layer of indifference, when he told you he'd tried to fly to the sun one day, and ended up in a bush next to his front door. He thinned your heavy skin, and you felt the world go by for the first time in years.

You think the reason he liked you so much was because you didn't like him. Well no—that wasn't entirely fair. You didn't like _anyone _then, Finnick was just the first to cross your path.

You didn't like him, but even you, stunted as you were, could tell he was attractive. Until two seconds later, when he placed the look in your eyes, and all his warm welcomes faded to contempt. Then your hackles rose and you snapped at him, showing him why it didn't do to underestimate Johanna Mason.

You think that maybe those were the first harsh words he'd heard since he won the games, what with all the congratulations, and the whispered flirtations. So you shouldn't have been surprised when, after you'd trailed off, glaring, he shot you that dazzling smile, put his arm around your shoulders, and made your world just a tiny bit better.

At first, you really did think he was just a pretty face, with a bit of muscle to back it up. It's only when you saw him working the Capitol crowds, manipulating the insipid women (and men) who populate them, squeezing just _a little bit more _out of each one, that you realize what a genius he is. He's just more subtle than you. He's just _better _than you, because even though he takes advantage of his victory in the games, something you promised yourself you'd never do (you broke that promise. A million times over), you know he's a good man. A jaded realist, bitter to the bone, but a good man. And you are not a good woman. But you've done your best with what you had and if it's a little bit less than okay, well tough.

Because you never had Annie

He told you about it late one night, laying across your bed, drunk out of his mind, but still so broken. He was Annie's mentor. It was only two or three years after he won, so he hadn't been hurt, hadn't learned not to trust.

Annie hadn't either. She was pretty and vivacious, clever and witty, but in the end, not strong enough. Not nearly strong enough

The first time they ever met was on the train heading for the Capitol. Finnick said at first he barely noticed her. He was still so drunk on his own victory, his own success, he couldn't think straight. The rush of _sex, money, fame, youyouyou _made his shoulders a little bit broader and his smile a little bit wider. You rolled your eyes at that, because Finnick has always been a bit of a drama queen.

Then there was Annie.

Annie was something you never were, even before life got hard, so you did, too. Annie was personable and kind and _ohsocharming. _And she wanted to win. She shoved Finnick right off his power trip and into her arms. Because Finnick was something you never were, also. He was young and alive and _ohsoinvincible _(But in the end he wasn't. In the end, nothing is invincible but pain). And even as your tattered heart bleeds for him, you can't help but think _stupid stupid stupid, _because you know, you've always known, that people, they let you down. Especially when the Capital's involved. But he was in love and nothing else was real, and you think you can sort of understand what he meant.

So you can sort of understand how much pain he's in.

He tried his best, worked his _ass _off, to bring her back home alive. You know it made him a lot of enemies back home, because the boy tribute that year didn't stand a chance. Even as he lay, dying, he was alone, no silver parachute to bring him home for those last seconds, because at the exact moment, Annie was being tortured _brutally, _by some Career tributes, and Finnick was frantically working his magic behind scenes, saving her life.

(he was lucky the Gamemakers were largely female that year).

But Annie, she wasn't the same after that. Something in her snapped and not even Finnick could put it back together again. She returned home alive, but empty. Not the beautiful, perfect girl she had once been. Her charisma replaced by madness, her silver tongue replaced by dreadful, soulful screams of pain.

The damage was done. Finnick—he couldn't release her hold on him. Couldn't forget what she once was, what she still could've been, if he hadn't failed so miserably, hadn't be so bumbling and incompetent.

(You remember slapping him after that one, because if there's one thing you can't stand it's survivor's guilt. It makes you think about your Luka and your mother and you can't let anybody, ever, see you cry.)

So you're maybe the only person who knows (Haymitch was there from the beginning, drunk and angry and lost inside himself, but never a confidant) that a pretty damn big piece of Finnick is broken, too. A pretty damn big piece of him was never as strong as it seemed because he gave his heart to someone else to keep safe. And one day, his heart wasn't enough to keep the pain out, so she handed it over to _please make it stopstopstop. _

Finnick, for all his bravado and confidence and handsome smiles, is not strong. In fact, you think he might be weaker even than you, because Finnick Odair can't let go and he can't learn from his mistakes. He lets Annie clutch him too, too tight in her too, too mad fingers because the bruises hurt, but if she let go, there'd be nothing left of him. And he let you into his heart, you and Haymitch and Peeta, and hell even Katniss, when he should have known better. Because yes, you'd die for him and yes, you'd doing anything he asked, but there are some things you just _can't _do. Like hold the world on your shoulders. Or protect Annie.

And Annie was his strength.

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A/N: Ok. That's Finnick. I hope I did him justice.


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